For nearly four decades, Congress has treated the anti-political dynasty mandate of the 1987 Constitution as a decorative sentence, something to quote in speeches but never to enact. Now, at long last, we have a bill, House Bill 6771, authored by House Speaker Bodjie Dy and the President’s own son, House Majority Floor Leader Sandro Marcos. One would think this is the long-awaited moment of reckoning. But look more closely, and you will see something else entirely.
This is not the death of dynasties. It is their legalization.
HB 6771 appears bold at first glance. It defines dynasties, sets prohibitions, outlines degrees of relationship, and finally operationalizes a constitutional mandate that Congress buried for almost four decades. On paper, this is the reform Filipinos have been demanding. But the authorship gives the game away. A bill authored by scions of entrenched political families cannot be read only for what it says. It must be read for what it avoids.
And what it avoids is everything that actually threatens political dynasties.
The most glaring loophole is also the most dangerous: the bill bans simultaneous office-holding but does not ban successive dynastic succession. Meaning, families may no longer hold overlapping positions in the same locality, but they can rule forever by taking turns. Father to wife to daughter to cousin to nephew. The dynasty continues uninterrupted; only the choreography changes. The Dutertes can keep Davao. The Villafuertes can keep Camarines Sur. The Garcias can keep Cebu. Even the Marcoses can retain Ilocos without breaking a single clause of this so-called anti-dynasty bill.
In political science, this is called “institutional entrenchment.” You pass a reform that appears to threaten the powerful, but is crafted to protect them. HB 6771 does exactly that.
The bill also allows families to dominate multiple jurisdictions simultaneously. You can have a father in the Senate, a daughter as governor in another province, and a son as mayor in a distant city and still be perfectly legal under HB 6771. The prohibition on simultaneous office-holding applies only within the same LGU-level jurisdiction. Large dynasties with wide geographic reach are untouched, while smaller dynasties with only one bailiwick are constrained. This is not reform. This is cartel management.
The political timing also matters. With corruption scandals crashing into the administration, an anti-dynasty bill written by the President’s son is perfect narrative camouflage. “We are reformers,” the administration can now claim. “We are finally doing what no one else dared.” But HB 6771 is a textbook example of controlled reform. It gives just enough change to silence critics while ensuring the powerful remain powerful.
In truth, the bill harms only the weakest political families – those without national footholds or multiple local strongholds. It is a purge of minnows that leaves the sharks fed and swimming.
Congress will, of course, praise this bill as historic. But the real history lies elsewhere. This is the moment when political families, sensing growing public anger, preemptively passed a version of reform that continues to benefit them. It is a survival tactic disguised as virtue.
The Marcos administration will market this bill as courageous governance. But courage would mean dismantling dynasties, not codifying them. Courage would mean banning both simultaneous and successive monopolies of power. Courage would mean resisting the temptation to write a law that protects your own lineage.
HB 6771 is not the anti-dynasty law the Constitution envisioned. It is the anti-dynasty law the dynasties designed.
And if this passes, it will not break the grip of political families. It will tighten it. Filipinos deserve to recognize this bill for what it truly is: not a weapon against dynasties, but a shield for them. A preemptive strike against real reform. A legal fortress built by the very people it pretends to limit.
If this is the beginning of reform, then reform is already compromised.
